pennyspoetryfandomcom-20200214-history
Timothy Thomas Fortune
Timothy Thomas Fortune (October 3, 1856 - June 2, 1928) was an African-American poet, journalist, editor and publisher, orator, and civil rights leader. Life Youth Fortune was born a slave in Marianna, Jackson co., Florida to Emanuel and Sarah Jane Fortune. He started his education at Marianna's 1st school for African Americans after the Civil War. His family moved to Jacksonville where he attended Stanton High School for Negroes. He worked both as a page in the state senate and apprenticed as printer at a Jacksonville newspaper during the time that his father, Emanuel, was a Reconstruction politician in Florida. For a time he also worked at the Marianna Courier and later the Jacksonville Daily-Times Union. These experiences would be the start of a career wherein he would go on to have his work published in over 20 books and articles and in more than 300 editorials. He was appointed customs inspector for the eastern district of Delaware but only held this position for a few months before resigning in order to attend Howard University. Education Although he was mostly self-taught, in 1875 Fortune enrolled in Howard University to study law. He changed to journalism after two semesters before leaving school altogether to begin work, in 1876, at the People's Advocate, a newspaper in Washington, D.C. New York journalist Fortune moved to New York City in 1881 and began a process whereby over the next 2 decades he would become known as editor and owner of a newspaper named the Globe, then the Freeman, and finally the New York Age. Upon arrival in New York, Fortune began working as a printer. He became part owner of various publications, ultimately founding the New York Freeman in 1884. That same year he published a book Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South. Four years later The Freeman took the new name of The New York Age and set out to become "The Afro-American Journal of News and Opinion". In Chicago on January 25, 1890 Fortune co-founded the militant National Afro-American League to right wrongs against African Americans authorized by law and sanctioned or tolerated by public opinion. The league fell apart after four years. When it was revived in Rochester, New York on September 15, 1898, it had the new name of the "National Afro-American Council", with Fortune as President. Those two organizations would play a vital role in setting the stage for the Niagara Movement, NAACP and other civil rights organizations to follow. Fortune was also the leading advocate of using Afro-American to identify his people. Since they are "African in origin and American in birth", it was his argument that it most accurately defined them. With Fortune at the helm as co-owner with Emanuel Fortune, Jr. and Jerome B. Peterson, the New York Age became the most widely read of all Black newspapers. It stood at the forefront as a voice agitating against the evils of discrimination, lynching, mob violence, and disenfranchisement. Its popularity was due to Fortune's editorials which condemned all forms of discrimination and demanded full justice for all African Americans. Ida B. Wells's newspaper Memphis Free Speech and Headlight had its printing press destroyed and building burned as the result of an article published in it on May 25, 1892. Fortune then gave her a job and a new platform from which to detail and condemn lynching. His book The Kind of Education the Afro-American Most Needs was published in 1898. He published Dreams of Life: Miscellaneous Poems in 1905. After a nervous breakdown, Fortune sold the New York Age to Fred R. Moore in 1907, who continued publishing it until 1960. Fortune published another book The New York Negro in Journalism in 1915. Fortune and the Negro World Fortune went to work as an editor at the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League's house organ, the Negro World, in 1923. At its height the Negro World had circulation of over 200,000. With distribution throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and in Central America it may have been the most widely distributed newspaper in the world at that time. During his tenure at the Negro World, Fortune rubbed shoulders with such literary luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, W.A. Domingo, Hubert Harrison, and John E. Bruce, among others. In 1901 Fortune moved to Red Bank, New Jersey, where he built his home, Maple Hill.Horner, Shirley. "ABOUT BOOKS", The New York Times, October 3, 1993]. Accessed December 19, 2007. "Timothy Thomas Fortune, a pioneering black journalist, who went on to start The New York Age, once the nation's leading black newspaper, moved to Red Bank in 1901. His Red Bank home, W. Burgen place, is a National Historic Landmark." Fortune died in 1928 at age 71 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Recognition Thomas's homw in Red Bank, New Jersey, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1976 and the New Jersey Register of Historic Places on August 16, 1979.NEW JERSEY - Monmouth County, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed November 21, 2007. Publications ;Poetry * Dreams of Life: Miscellaneous poems. New York: Fortune & Peterson, 1905; Miami, FL: Mnemosyne, 1969. ;Non-fiction * Black and White: Land, labor, and politics in the South. New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1884; New York: Arno Press, 1968. *''The Negro in Politics: Some pertinent reflections on the past and present political status of the Afro-American, together with a cursory investigation into the motives which actuate partisan organizations''. New York: Ogilvie & Rowntree, 1885. *''The New York Negro in Journalism''. New York : National Negro Exposition, New York Commission, 1915. *''After War Times: an African American childhood in reconstruction-era Florida''. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2014. ;Collected editions *''T. Thomas Fortune, the Afro-American Agitator: A collection of writings, 1880-1928'' (edited by Shawn Leigh Alexander). Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2008. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Timothy Thomas Fortune, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Aug. 15, 2014. See also * List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *Timothy Thomas Fortune at AllPoetry (56 poems) ;Books * *Timothy Thomas Fortune at Amazon.com ;About *T. Thomas Fortune in the Encyclopædia Britannica *T. Thomas Fortune at PBS. *T. Thomas Fortune at Find a Grave ;Etc. *Letter from T. Thomas Fortune to George Myers Category:1856 births Category:1928 deaths Category:African-American writers Category:Negro World contributors Category:Howard University alumni Category:People from Red Bank, New Jersey Category:UNIA members Category:20th-century poets Category:African American poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets